$30-million endowment will reward hard-working Salem City students
Seniors Tanner Humphreys and James Watson and junior Abigail Sharp - students in Salem High School's International Baccalaureate program - working in Spanish class, on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014. They, and other Salem students, will have the chance to take advantage of a $30-million endowment left to the school. (Staff Photo by Alex Young/South Jersey Times)
By Alex Young | South Jersey Times Today's Sunbeam
October 23, 2014
SALEM — Students enrolled at schools in the city school district will have the chance to take advantage of financial benefits thanks to a $30-million endowment left to them by a former Princeton University professor and Salem resident.
Upon his death, Forman S. Acton established a foundation that will directly benefit the students of the district in the form of scholarships, college accounts and college preparation, according to district Superintendent Dr. Amiot P. Michel.
The foundation will provide at least $1.5 million per year to qualified students in the district. Michel said students are intended to be the sole beneficiaries of the money, and it cannot be used in the district's budgetary process. The yearly donation is designed to go on forever and never end, according to Michel.
Michel said the district caught Acton's eye when they established Salem High School's International Baccalaureate (IB) Program, a selective and rigorous academic program for the school's 11th and 12th graders.
"His whole thing was that he wanted kids to be in the most rigorous programs possible," Michel said. "He wanted kids to have a private school-like experience."
As part of endowment, the Forman S. Acton Foundation asked the district to expand the IB Program to all grades, including kindergarten. The foundation would pay for teachers to get IB training.
The money from the foundation will be used in several ways, Michel said, but in order to take advantage of the money, students will have to push themselves and succeed academically.
IB students will have the chance to become "Acton Scholars," and to graduate college without debt as long as they maintain a 3.0 average.
Acton Scholars will also have the chance to take advantage of one-on-one ACT test tutoring. The cost of the IB program's yearly trip the IB World Conference will also be covered by the foundation. The foundation also hopes to give Acton Scholars a chance attend summer programs at a few Ivy League Schools. However, that program is still in the planning stages.
Salem High School Prinicipal John Mulhorn said it's a way to reward students that took a significant chance on such a challenging program, and it could be a way to get more students to take that chance.
"Those students took an academic risk, and they make a lot of sacrifices to be in the program," he said. "That's the way we want all of our students to start thinking. If they really push themselves there will be rewards and supports."
Even though the IB Program is what drew Acton to the district, his money will also be used to give other students rewards for hard work.
Starting at the end of this school year, any student that maintains a 3.0 average will get credit towards a college account. The account can start as early as kindergarten and can be added to every year through 12th grade. Michel said an amount for college account rewards has not been determined, but it could vary based on grade.
He added that the college accounts are only for students enrolled in a Salem City District school, but sending-district students could take advantage of them once they begin 9th grade at Salem High School.
Students that are not in the IB program but are four-year-college bound and have a 3.0 average will also get to take part in group ACT prep courses that would take place on Saturdays.
Mulhorn says the foundation adds tangible incentives for kids that may not have previously seen the benefits of hard work.
"We want our kids to have the same opportunities that kids that attend private schools have," he said. "A lot of times kids that attend private school have that extra financial backing that a lot of our kids don't. ... (the foundation shows them) by maintaining good grades, there's a way for (them) to benefit from doing well."
Michel said he believes the district already offers some of the best programs for students to be prepared for a competitive global environment, but he thinks the endowment will only encourage more students to push themselves.
"The IB Program, AP classes, those programs wouldn't disappear without this money, but what it does for kids is very exciting and humbling," he said. "It encourages kids to work, and it keeps kids from running away from hard programs and hard work. That's something that I would wish for anyone's kids."